Undergraduate students fulfill the UF Quest 1 requirement and satisfy three credits of the General Education requirement in the Humanities by successfully completing one Quest 1 course. Some Quest 1 courses may also fulfill the Diversity or International requirement and/or count toward the Writing requirement.
Quest 1 courses are lower-division, multi-disciplinary courses in the arts and humanities that explore essential questions about the human condition: What makes life worth living? What makes a society a fair one? How do we manage conflicts? Who are we in relation to other people or to the natural world?
These questions ground a range of courses organized under five overarching themes: (1) The Examined Life, (2) Identities, (3) Justice and Power, (4) Nature and Culture, and (5) War and Peace. Faculty also have the option of developing a course that may not fit under any one of the pre-existing five themes (i.e., the “wildcard” option).
Unlike typical first-year offerings, Quest 1 courses extend beyond any one discipline. They are not a survey of or an introduction to a field. Instead, they invite students to ask the kinds of questions that may not be easy to answer but are difficult to ignore.
At the same time, Quest 1 courses are firmly grounded in the academic rigor developed by the humanities disciplines that are the focus of these courses. Students are expected to create arguments and draw on evidence as appropriate for the fields of study in which instruction is provided and are assessed accordingly.
While their content will vary, Quest 1 courses share Objectives and Student Learning Outcomes. In addition, they seek to inspire students to investigate the arts and humanities actively. Each class offers an opportunity to participate in experiential learning activities and connect course content to their own lives.